Change your mind, not your time. Seneca, Epistles 3.28.1-3
Seneca
answers a letter from Lucilius in which the latter asked why
his vacations abroad failed to improve his life,
philosophically speaking. Seneca points out that changing location is
not the same as changing our internal condition. We cannot control
the weather outside, but the weather in our minds is something over
which we have significant control, if we can learn to grasp it.
Hoc
tibi soli putas accidisse et admiraris quasi rem novam quod
peregrinatione tam longa et tot locorum varietatibus non discussisti
tristitiam gravitatemque mentis? Animum debes mutare, non caelum.
Licet vastum traieceris mare, licet, ut ait Vergilius noster,
terraeque
urbesque recedant,
sequentur
te quocumque perveneris vitia. Hoc idem querenti cuidam Socrates ait,
'quid miraris nihil tibi peregrinationes prodesse, cum te
circumferas? premit te eadem causa quae expulit'. Quid terrarum
iuvare novitas potest? quid cognitio urbium aut locorum? in irritum
cedit ista iactatio. Quaeris quare te fuga ista non adiuvet? tecum
fugis. Onus animi deponendum est: non ante tibi ullus placebit locus.
Talem nunc esse habitum tuum cogita qualem Vergilius noster vatis
inducit iam concitatae et instigatae multumque habentis se spiritus
non sui:
bacchatur
vates, magnum si pectore possit
excussisse deum.
Do
you really think that the disappointing outcome of your recent vacation is so unique? Are
you amazed at it, as though it were utterly unexpected that you should travel so long, to so many different places, without managing to shake the sadness that weighs upon your mind? Your
duty on life's journey is to manage your mind, not the weather you
meet. Suppose you cross a vast ocean, so great that as our own Vergil
says,
Shores
and cities fall from sight.
Aeneid
3.72 (‡)
Still
your vices will come with you wherever you go. Someone once asked
Socrates the same question you put to me. The philosopher said, “Why
are you surprised that your travels avail you nothing, since you
always take yourself along? When you arrive at your destination, you
are still pressed by the same internal circumstances that drove you
out of your home.” What help is it to be in another country? How
does knowing different cities or lands improve your relationship to
yourself? Taking yourself all over the world does nothing for your
mind. You want to know why your vacation abroad is useless, why it
gives you no relief? It's because you are taking it with yourself.
Your mind carries within a burden that it must put down: until this
happens, no place will bring you peace. You must imagine your
condition now as being very similar to that of the prophetess Vergil
describes, pricked and goaded by a spirit that is not her own:
Wild
she longs with mad delight
From
her chest the god to strike.
Aeneid
6.78-9 (†)
---
(‡)
These lines are uttered by Aeneas to the Carthaginian queen Dido, as
the hero recounts how he and his people first set sail for foreign
lands after the Greeks captured Troy, their home.
(†)
The prophetess here is the Cumaean Sibyl, and the god she struggles
with is Apollo. Ultimately, she reveals to Aeneas the fate of his
band of refugees from Troy.